Depleted Uranium

[Steven Pollack <themissinglink@eznetinc.com>]

NATO strikes send dioxins, furans, uranium over Europe

MOSCOW, May 27 (Itar-Tass) - NATO's air strikes on Yugoslavia have
environmental impacts on Europe, said Major General Boris Alekseyev, the
Russian army's environmental safety department chief.

He said at a press conference on Thursday that the air strikes have
"far-going ecologic concequences".

NATO is doing "deliberate destruction of chemically dangerous facilities"
in Yugoslavia, in particular of ammonia and polymer productions.

Struck, these productions emit clouds of high-toxic substances that travel
great distances. The most dangerous components of polymer production are
phosgene and hydrocyanic acid.

Ignition of polymer materials releases "enormous amounts" of dioxins and
furans, Alekseyev said. Registered dioxin concentrations in the air amount
to "five by ten in the minus tenth degree of a milligramme per litre of
the air", he said. Dioxins accummulate in the human body, Alekseyev said.

He said NATO air power's destroying of Yugoslavia's refineries and setting
them to fire are associated with the release of large amounts of
hydrocarbons, the most dangerous of which is benzopyrene.
Benzopyrene-contaminated smoke clouds drift as far borders of Romania,
Bulgaria and less often the Czech Republic. Alekseyev said another cause
for concern was that "Americans have found in the territory of Yugoslavia
their convenient method for disposal of decommissioned munitions".

He explained that NATO planes fairly extensively use shells with depleted
uranium.

"In fact, this is waste of nuclear production. These munitions are
manufactured in Great Britain under the American license," Alekseyev said.

The anti-armour shells with uranium cores are used against tanks and
concrete installations. When hitting metal or concrete, the uranium core
generates heat which causes partial evaporation of the core with
production of uranium oxides. Part of uranium is converted to an aerosol
that can spread over large areas.

The US' using the shells with depleted uranium in operation Desert Storm
in Iraq has left 20-25 percent of the American and British personnel
involved in it with diseases and abnormalities at the genetic level,
Alekseyev said.

NATO's raids are contaminating Yugoslavia and adjacent European states
with dioxins, benzopyrene and uranium, he said.

"I think that in a year, a situation will occur in this region where the
Americans will start talking that foods grown in southern Europe are not
good for use," he said.

He said "there is a real danger" of contamination of the Black Sea. NATO's
bombing causes leaks of oil products from Yugoslavia's storages. The oil
products run off with ground waters to the Danube river which drains into
the Black Sea.

Alekseyev said "a 14 kilometre-long oil sleek with a high content of oil
products is moving at a speed of five kipometres an hour" down the Danube
these days and is close to the Black Sea.

Getting into ground waters, oil products dissolve and convert to aromatic
hydrocarbons that are bound to spread to the Black Sea, whose
contamination after NATO's strikes on Yugoslavia "already has been
confirmed", the military environmentalist said.